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Obviously, its got to be a Tolkien songs from Lord of the Rings!

Things evolve and change. The sonata structure was already severely altered in Beethoven's era, and nowadays it can be written in a number of different ways... and still be considered a sonata. The same works for fugues, for examples. (although not everyone agree with it... but I do). The idea of composing a Requiem is: I want to compose something for the dead people. It's neither a mass, nor a different lithurgical text, but something different. The name "Requiem" comes both from tradition and from the latin word "requiem" (rest).

in the end of the day there aren't that many standarts and rules in music. follow what you think is best.

Now that is creativity

I always loved the funeral song from Shakespeare's Cymbeline Act IV, scene 2. Fear no more the heat o' the sun; Nor the furious winter's rages, Thou thy worldly task hast done, Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages; Golden lads and girls all must, As chimney sweepers come to dust. Fear no more the frown of the great, Thou art past the tyrant's stroke: Care no more to clothe and eat; To thee the reed is as the oak: The sceptre, learning, physic, must All follow this, and come to dust. Fear no more the lightning-flash, Nor the all-dread thunder-stone; Fear not slander, censure rash; Thou hast finished joy and moan; All lovers young, all lovers must Consign to thee, and come to dust. No exorciser harm thee! Nor no witchcraft charm thee! Ghost unlaid forbear thee! Nothing ill come near thee! Quiet consummation have; And renowned be thy grave! Another one I can think of (and probably the most beautiful poem about death) that has always been a source of comfort for me has been Thanatopsis by William Cullen Bryant. Especially the final stanza: So live, that when thy summons comes to join The innumerable caravan, that moves To that mysterious realm, where each shall take His chamber in the silent halls of death, Thou go not like the quarry-slave at night, Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave, Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.

It seems Sonataform will have a few busy weeks studying this many submissions. Let's hope for the best!

Do a forum canata, by setting the text of the posts on YC

What do you make of Brahms's A German Requiem, then, which doesn't use the traditional Catholic requiem text, but rather excerpts from Luther's German translated Bible? or Britten's War Requiem, which is non-liturgical and greatly deviates from the Latin text? or Stravinsky's Requiem Canticles which, though it has parts of the Latin Requiem Mass, doesn't actually incorporate the 'Requiem aeternam dona eis Domine' from which the form gets its name, and is also not strictly liturgical? or Takemitsu's Requiem for String Orchestra, which doesn't use any text or even a choir? Requiem, these days, only means 'death mass'. There's no rule in music stating that a requiem be exclusive to specified and accepted religious texts, or any text of any particularity, or any text at all - except that it be about the dead, and as a 'hymn, composition, or service'. Its evolution has given enough precedent to move away from the original texts and forms while still holding the word meaningfully to its definition and purpose; the greater and older traditions of the piece aren't now very relevant. All that's necessary is to compose a piece in which the singular sentiment of mourning or celebration of the dead is concentrically expressed in the music itself. There might as well be a secular death mass now; it certainly doesn't need to be Catholic or variously religious otherwise. The sentiment can even be abstract, made only in sounds, absent any real language or words; but only feelings elicited by sound-symbols transmitted from the instruments to the audience, unspecific sensations of the meanings of one's experiences with death and the living lost - which no text or person has any real right to or authority on in absolute terms. It is a human experience beyond ideology and belief, and nearly beyond understanding, if not literally beyond cognizance. The experience ought to be expressed in any way possible, if only to bid a distant, removed, personal and meaningful acquaintance of it, and maybe then a newly wound thread of knowledge and nascent acceptance of it and its place between us and posterity.